October 28 - The Kingdom of Heaven

These last couple of weeks have been intense!  I feel like I've shut down my brain for everything except classwork. I'm hoping that getting through mid-term will allow me to step back on the path of normalcy for a couple of weeks.  Today I take a proctored Greek exam and my head is filled with all sorts of strange information.

In my Inductive Bible Study class we are looking at Matthew 13 this week.  Jesus takes the entire chapter to explain the Kingdom of God in Parables.  Because he is dealing with a crowd of people that don't get it, he ends up telling his disciples that he uses parables because of that reason.  And then when he is with his disciples, he spells things out for them.  I certainly would not have wanted to be on the outside of that group, wondering what in the world he meant when he talked about a sower planting seed in rocky ground, among thorns, etc.  I probably would have thought he was a little odd.  But, then I'm not really a parable person unless I have a good foundation of information. 

In Chapter 13, though, he used very familiar analogies to tell his stories.  People listening to him knew about sowing seed ... they knew about weeds growing up in the wheat field, they used yeast in the home, they would have loved to find a hidden treasure in a field or a pearl of great price, they would have known about sorting the good fish from the bad fish after a fishing net had pulled all of them to shore.  Jesus spoke to the people in a language that they understood.

One of the structural relationships we look for is recurrence.  The words "the kingdom of heaven is like ..." occur over and over in this chapter.  Another idea that continually recurs is that of listening and hearing.  I wonder if he got tired of opening his mouth and having every person that is sitting in the audience look confused as he tried to explain the concept of the kingdom of God to them!  I know there is nothing worse than standing in front of a group of people with words I've spent a great deal of time putting together and realizing that they are all thinking about being somewhere else or thinking about other things or maybe they're even sleeping. 

When Jesus arrived on earth, he brought with him the kingdom of God.  This was the beginning of its fulfillment. This is a huge deal!  More than anything, this was what people needed.  And they still couldn't be bothered to understand.

Jesus finished teaching that day and turned to his disciples to ask, "Have you understood all these things?"  They responded in the affirmative and he said, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the Kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

We have been instructed. When Jesus left earth, the Holy Spirit came to teach us, to instruct us.  We know about the kingdom of God.  Our job ... to bring out those treasures and share them with the world.